


A Different Kind of Bully: Arnim Zola in The First Avenger

by Franzbibliothek



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Meta, Zola is actually a very well conceived villain, probably the best developed in the captain america franchise so far
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 12:48:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6079860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Franzbibliothek/pseuds/Franzbibliothek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Captain America franchise while good at developing its protagonists, have left the antagonists largely forgettable. Yet I would argue that even from his first introduction in The First Avenger Arnim Zola has been the best developed villain and meaningfully mirrors actual German Doctors who worked in concentration camps during World War II.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Different Kind of Bully: Arnim Zola in The First Avenger

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry the source citing is a bit of a mess, all sources I reference to can be found in the work cited at the end.

A common critique of _Captain America: The First Avenger_ and the Marvel film franchise in general is the poor writing of its villains. When compared to Tom Hiddleston’s sympathetic Loki, Hugo Weaving’s Johann Schmidt comes off as cartoonish, and evil for the sake of evil. He is after all, a literal Nazi, or at least Nazi-affiliate when he breaks ties later on, who only serves as a foil to Steve Rogers in the most superficial way: good v. bad, weak v. strong. In the article “Marvel Needs to Defeat its Villain Problem” the author offers a suggestion that Baron von Zemo should only be introduced in the upcoming Captain America: Civil War, overstuffed as it already is with conflict. This would give the character a chance for development before directly facing off Captain America as a main antagonist. I feel it is worth pointing out that the Captain America franchise has already done this to an extent with one of its villains: Arnim Zola. To a casual viewer this may seem like a strange assertion to make, in _The First Avenger_ he’s little more than a bumbling sidekick who then transforms rather inexplicably into a computer in _The Winter Soldier_. In neither films is he the main antagonist and he disappears before the climax, on the surface making little impact to the larger narrative. Yet with some analysis, not only is Zola's development consistent, but underscores some important ideological points within the Captain America franchise. Zola is at once a weak man who once given power becomes exploitative of it and it is his particular deceptive evil that would shape the future face of Hydra.

In the Captain America comics Arnim Zola is just one more sadistic Nazi scientist, easy to mix up with Baron von Zemo based on the name alone. In the films though he is first introduced as Red Skull's lackey, who the audience is made almost to feel sympathy for. This is especially true if the prelude comic is to be believed, where he agrees to work with the Red Skull under clear duress, as he’s surrounded by the dead bodies of his co-workers. Zola is no hero, but throughout the first half of the film he plays a very passive role. In fact he seems more of a comic relief sidekick to the Red Skull than a villain. In the first place his character was given the appearance of a short, plump, and bespectacled man in clear terror of his taller and physically imposing boss. Yet despite his fear of Red Skull he constantly expresses doubts about his boss' various plans, even urging Red Skull not to assassinate Dr. Erskine, giving Zola the appearance of a reticent participator in them. A casual observer could even argue that we never actually see Zola do anything all that morally wrong in _The First Avenger_ beyond his unsavory associations. When Schmidt is harnessing the power of the cosmic cube, Schmidt is excited about world conquest, in contrast Zola is excited by the fact that the cube could power his designs. He does not even use the word weapons, which are primarily what Zola is producing for Schmidt. This harmless veneer is important, because it means that the audience sees Zola in much the same way the film's American military sees him. Zola is a scientist first and his affiliation with Hydra was out of unfortunate personal necessity. When he’s captured he only makes the weakest sort of resistance to his interrogation, and his loyalties are easily changeable, hardly a Nazi or Hydra ideologue. This also happens to be how many Nazi scientists recruited for Operation Paperclip were thought of.

In _The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide_ by Robert Jay Lifton the conclusion he comes to after interviewing a number of doctors that served at concentration camps is that contrary to popular belief, ordinary men are just as capable of extraordinary evil in the right circumstances as extraordinarily bad ones. This very idea is what I think defines Zola; he’s forced to join Schmidt and Hydra and throughout the film is depicted as more weak-willed than evil in his own right. Yet he comes to be genuinely committed to his experiments. It brings to mind an interesting episode about a German doctor working in Auschwitz, a Dr. Ernst B. who preformed largely benign (especially compared to many other horrors going on in the medical blocks) dental experiments on prisoners. He justified his work as keeping these prisoners away from the far more deadly experiments that were going on, but even then he was preforming experiments on some prisoners that were not in any immediate danger of being used for other medical experiments. This means that the doctor, for all his self-justification was also interested in the outcome of his work, and exploited unwilling participants to carry his experiments out.

In a similar way we know that Zola was experimenting on Bucky Barnes not just at the bequest of Schmidt to recreate the super-soldier formula. Though the audience is never shown such a request, it seems likely Red Skull was knowledgeable of the experiments that were going on. Yet it is Zola who is made distressed when Red Skull places detonation on the Hydra base putting an end to his experiments. He is then depicted racing to gather his plans. This in itself is treated as rather innocuous, until one reflects on his actions and realizes that he just ran out of a room where a man was tied down to a gurney in a factory set to explode. Also the glimpse of the plans the audience sees is a design very much like the body Zola would create for himself in his comic incarnation to give himself in effect immortality. This sequence is the first real glimpse given to the audience of Zola's true nature and even then it is easy to miss. Zola even at his most apparently harmless, was not just a Red Skull crony. Once given freedom and power he took it to pursue his personal interest in trying to extend his life. He is not driven by megalomania or dreams of grandeur so much as fear, curiosity, and his own desire to elude harm and ultimately death.

Throughout _The First Avenger_ Zola is portrayed as clearly disliking death. Not only did he feel assassinating Dr. Erskine was unnecessary, when Schmidt is about to kill a man in front of Zola, he is clearly shown looking away. He even admits later to being a vegetarian, this may very well be a joking reference to the fact that Hitler was a vegetarian. A viewer might only see this distaste for death as confirming their view of him as a weak man, working for Schmidt under coercion. Yet his experiments directly lead to a great deal of death. This paradox of a timid man who fears death and yet goes on the cause so much of it can also be found in another German doctor: ”Pfannmüller had a reputation of being 'very soft—a soft depressive type,' who ordinarily 'could not hurt a fly.' It is likely that Pfannmüller was both a genuine ideologue and an extreme example of the depressed person who had overcome his own anxiety and death imagery by harming others. But when he had reached the point of starving to death infants, children, and adults, it is likely that there was operating a strong psychological brew of omnipotence and sadism.” (Lifton 120) This is a description of a Nazi scientist who slowly starved children to death because he thought it be less wasteful than using up drugs to exterminate them. Zola functions then as a foil to Steve Rogers in that they both start out weak men without any power, and yet when Zola is finally granted power in contrast to Steve, he does not have compassion for those weaker than himself, and in fact immediately exploits them as we see with his human experiments which are as much to further his own personal ambition of immortality as they are just following Schmidt’s orders.

After his capture, Zola's interrogation is shown from his perspective. He has half his shirt untucked, giving him the appearance of being a large terrified child. The discovery of the drop of blood on the cot is then genuinely unsettling until the grumpy but good-hearted General Phillips appears to assure the audience that the American military would never stoop to something as sordid as torture. Still to step back to the significance of Zola being disturbed specifically by a cot with a bloodstain on it. Yes, there is the generic threat of torture, but in particular remember what Zola did back at the first Hydra base? He strapped men down to gurneys and experimented on them. Zola is terrified, like all bullies, of being subjected to the very same indignities he subjected others to.

 _The Winter Soldier_ is a film about revealing truths and transparency and likewise this is the first time the audience is able to clearly see Zola not just as a bumbling sidekick but as an opportunist. Briefly Zola is depicted at last preforming the experiments that could only be inferred before, and notably this is seen from the perspective of his victim. Some viewers might object that this portrayal of Zola from a soft-spoken timid scientist to a cackling monologuing villain is a characterization 180, but analyzing _The First Avenger_ closely it is a revelation of what has always in Zola, but hidden from the US military and the audience.

Much more can be written about Zola's role in _The Winter Soldier_. For the purposes of this essay it is enough to argue that Zola, far from being a one-dimensional lackey of a one-dimensional villain, actually embodies the subtle sort of bully that foreshadows the true direction Hydra would take as an organization. This apparent harmlessness is in some ways far more terrifying than Red Skull because of its ability to go under everybody's notice. Needless to say I do not this will be the last of Arnim Zola the Captain America films will see.

 

Works Cited

 _Captain America: The First Avenger._ Dir. Joe Johnston. Marvel Studios, 2011. DVD.

 _Captain America: The Winter Soldier._ Dir. Antony Russo and Joe Russo. Marvel Studios, 2014. DVD.

Little, Annie Jacobsen. _Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program the Brought Nazi Scientists to America._ New York: Brown and Company, 2014. Print.

Lifton, Robert Jay. The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. United States of America: Basic Books, 2000. Print.

Goldberg, Matt. “Marvel Needs to Defeat it Villain Problem.” _Collider_. Collider, 5 May, 2015. Web. 6 Feb. 2016.


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